"I admit I am a hard sell, I can see and smell the BS thousands of miles away. The business environment today can't succeed for very long without honesty. If something can't be done it would be in the best interest for the company to explain in clear and honest words why."

Curt, Simon is the only representative of a "world class company" who has taken an active interest in our needs. Postcard stock was no longer in the line-up after Ilford came out of their gut-wrenching reorganizarion, and it was brought back "on spec" due in part to the members of this forum. If you will take the time to look at his most recent post, his candor is remarkable. I see the tone of your post as a somewhat negative take on things, and perhaps in your comment about bs, the fox is smelling his own hole, no?

I greatly appreciate the work Ilford has done in keeping film alive. Their interest in ULF is a gamble, at best, and is just another indicator of film's viability in the digital world. I wouldn't blame Ilford for the demise of film. If anything, it is the human need for immediate gratification which has caused this shift in market place. tim

Terence

03-20-2007, 10:40 AM

And don't forget SFX in 120 size.

Sal Santamaura

03-20-2007, 10:49 AM

...on ULF, ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology will do what it always does, listen to its customers and find a solution, which I will post in due course, I have to speak to people internally and in the US.

As to PAN F+ emulsion in sheet film...I will explain, once again...First, thank you for seeking a solution and posting when it's found. Past behavior is usually a good indicator of future actions; I think we can therefore count on you to follow up.

Concerning PAN F+ emulsion in sheet film, please don't explain ever again. Even if you feel compelled to respond to future repetitious requests, a simple link to this thread will be more than deserved. Please don't waste any more of your time typing the same things over and over.

bnelson

03-20-2007, 11:44 AM

Actually the extra month is great for me. I'm not yet involved in the ULF format but just trying to figure out what size of camera so this gives me a little time to "get my ducks in order" for the camera and still get on the list for the film.

I am a little discouraged that this Ilford special order may not be every year, but now every two years. What will someone new to this area do?

How much ULF film do most of you expose every year?

Bill

eclarke

03-20-2007, 12:28 PM

Dear All,

Thanks for all the feedback on ULF, ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology will do what it always does, listen to its customers and find a solution, which I will post in due course, I have to speak to people internally and in the US.

As to PAN F+ emulsion in sheet film, yes people are passionate about it, we would like to have it in the range and make it.... but it really is a bridge too far : Why, I will explain, once again :

Within our quality regimes we could finish safely twice at a years interval from one coating, therefore we would use maximum 2,500sq metres.

Other 2,500 sq metres would be DESTROYED ( but silver recovered )

Additional cost of cold / controlled storage of parent roll

I have worked out the approx retail cost ( + or - 10% ) of 25 sheets of 5" x 4excluding any local taxes so that we would recover our total spend ( but make no profit whatsoever) in 2 years from the date of shipping the first order :

$ 113.07 per 25 sheets of 5 x 4
__________________________

This is why we do not, and will never make PAN F + in sheet film : No one would buy it at that price.....whether they loved it or not

I hope that explains the situation :

With Kind Regards

Simon. ILFORD photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

And after Simon and his company accomplished all that he has outlined above, everybody would let him down with crappy order quantities like this ULF order. Face it, this community is not going to keep any companies alive with B&W film purchases, that is why Kodak, who needs to make BIGGER runs, has their attitude towards film..Evan Clarke

Terence

03-20-2007, 01:16 PM

I am a little discouraged that this Ilford special order may not be every year, but now every two years. What will someone new to this area do?

How much ULF film do most of you expose every year?

Bill

I have barely made it through a box, but am partially hedging my bets on future availability and partially trying to motivate myself to go out and burn more sheets.

Personally, I'd buy another box, and maybe sell it during the year at a loss to someone new to ULF, to make sure that I and others have access to the product.

Dave Wooten

03-20-2007, 01:20 PM

1. Which sizes need the boost?

2. How many boxes are we short of the "endangered format" sizes order?

The extended time helps alot...thanks...

Bob F.

03-20-2007, 01:24 PM

< snip>
Sorry, but when it comes to Ilford you go off on absurd flights of fancy.

Example? You want 5x7 film and you complain that Ilford is ignoring the 5x7 user. You are then told that you can buy it off the shelf in three different emulsions. So, you change tack and insist on an emulsion (Pan-F) that you know is not coated on to sheets. Then, being told it can't be done for technical/financial reasons, you now say you don't care about them producing it after all (!) - now you want them to create an entirely new low-speed emulsion especially for the purpose (at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars/euro/whatever). It is clear that whatever they do will not satisfy you, hence my gold-bar joke-ette...

Your other contributions are entirely normal: it's just Ilford where you seem to have a strange need to slag them off at every opportunity and write long monomaniacal monologues about their perceived failings.

Please do not put words in to my mouth: you will search high and low without success looking for me saying that Ilford "cares". What it cares about is making sufficient profit to still be in business this time next year and the years beyond. Making films and paper that only a handful of people want to buy is not a valid business model. That Ilford succeed is in all our interests (ditto the film parts of Kodak and FujiFilm). Welcome to the wonderful world of capitalism.

I will not take this thread O.T. any further...

Bob.

colrehogan

03-20-2007, 02:56 PM

Actually the extra month is great for me. I'm not yet involved in the ULF format but just trying to figure out what size of camera so this gives me a little time to "get my ducks in order" for the camera and still get on the list for the film.

I am a little discouraged that this Ilford special order may not be every year, but now every two years. What will someone new to this area do?

How much ULF film do most of you expose every year?

Bill
I shot 50-60 sheets of 5x12 (a combination of FP4/HP5) last year, but I didn't start shooting that format until June/July. The scary thing is that I have this stuff graphed out in Excel at home. :o

photo8x10

03-20-2007, 05:04 PM

I don't know how many sheets can I shot in 8x20, I think when I'll be ready I can shoot 50-100 sheets in this format.
I think also that this special order should be done every one and half/two years.
Best
Stefano

Dave Wooten

03-20-2007, 05:23 PM

or have the distributor and retailers, order and keep a supply in stock. Money up front of course insures the present today need and posts no risk for the chosen distributor or retailer-inventory totally purchased before order and not shelved........A supplier ,having product at the ready for order, encourages one to shoot more and maybe not get in the hoarding-preservation mind set. It would be great if the retailers would step up and fill the order keeping the supply on hand.

Demand inventory works well if product can be delivered in a short time, i.e. a week.

Being able to get a box of film at a time-I could easily shoot 10 boxes in a 12 month period....paying as I go.....purchasing $3,000.00 in a one pay up front, forces me to use sparingly the few boxes I can afford to buy on the annual order...I know some photographers were able to purchase thousands of dollars worth of film on the first order...possibly they helped fill the initial order and still have a freezer full of film? Don t know..
does this make sense to anyone else?

Rick Olson

03-20-2007, 05:23 PM

I ordered two boxes of 7 x 17 Ilford FP-4 film during this run to participate and help the cause. Not a lot you say? Well ... I don't even own a 7 x 17 camera (yet). This is my goal and important enough for me to make this contribution, both to support Ilford's effort with the ULF community and to assist in mine. Everytime I open my freezer, I see those two big white boxes sitting there waiting for me. The anticipation of bigger and better things to come keeps me thinking positive.

THANKS SIMON AND ILFORD!!

Rick

jgjbowen

03-20-2007, 07:46 PM

I really find it hard to blame the dealers or to ask them to stock ULF film on the hope that someone will purchase it prior to it expiring. Here in Richmond VA (population > 1 million) the dealers don't even stock 4x5 film. How can we expect them to stock various sizes of ULF?

Curt

03-20-2007, 07:46 PM

I was going to reply to Bob but you just aren't worth the effort. I said in an earlier threat that I was using Ilford 120 Pan F and found it to be superior to what I was using. I found out that Ilford because of financial and motivational reasons won't push for a quality slow speed film in any sheet size. So be it. I will continue to use Adox/Efke and will support those retailers who sell it. I will say that I will continue to use Ilford 120 but that's it. The paper is too expensive and not that impressive. In my opinion Ilford is not that rounded. They could be a complete source for film, paper and chemicals but they will not, by their own words. In a way that's good because the competition for other manufactures to continue in the market place is going to stronger than ever. Ilford will never be a whole company like Kodak was. It will be a vanity company producing only a few parts of the entire picture.

Dave Wooten

03-20-2007, 09:19 PM

I really find it hard to blame the dealers or to ask them to stock ULF film on the hope that someone will purchase it prior to it expiring. Here in Richmond VA (population > 1 million) the dealers don't even stock 4x5 film. How can we expect them to stock various sizes of ULF?

True they don t stock it, but if they did I would purchase it. What I am getting at is if it is available more possibly would be used. It is easier for me financially, to purchase and use film on a monthly basis than it is to pay up front for annual supply....this greatly inhibits the amount of film I can purchase and use.

jgjbowen

03-20-2007, 09:20 PM

Dave,

Hopefully J&C will stock some Ilford ULF in various sizes.

Ole

03-20-2007, 10:47 PM

I was going to reply to Bob but you just aren't worth the effort. I said in an earlier threat that I was using Ilford 120 Pan F and found it to be superior to what I was using. I found out that Ilford because of financial and motivational reasons won't push for a quality slow speed film in any sheet size. So be it. ...

This is getting tiresome.

Pan F+ will not be produced in sheets because the emulsion is incompatible with the sheet film substrate. If they were to make a 50 ISO sheet film, it would have to be a completely different emulsion, so it wouldn't be Pan F+.

There's nothing "financial" or "motivational" about that.

Besides, they are testing a brand new ISO 25 emulsion which will also come in sheet sizes. Of course that won't be Pan F+, for reasons explained several dozen times.

BTW: That's an interesting misspelling you have there - Freudian slip? :D

Curt

03-21-2007, 01:33 AM

I found out that Ilford because of financial and motivational reasons won't push for a quality slow speed film in any sheet size.

For the last time; A SLOW SPEED FILM

Dear All,

Thanks for all the feedback on ULF, ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology will do what it always does, listen to its customers and find a solution, which I will post in due course, I have to speak to people internally and in the US.

As to PAN F+ emulsion in sheet film, yes people are passionate about it, we would like to have it in the range and make it.... but it really is a bridge too far : Why, I will explain, once again :

Within our quality regimes we could finish safely twice at a years interval from one coating, therefore we would use maximum 2,500sq metres.

Other 2,500 sq metres would be DESTROYED ( but silver recovered )

Additional cost of cold / controlled storage of parent roll

I have worked out the approx retail cost ( + or - 10% ) of 25 sheets of 5" x 4excluding any local taxes so that we would recover our total spend ( but make no profit whatsoever) in 2 years from the date of shipping the first order :

$ 113.07 per 25 sheets of 5 x

I don't give a hoot about Pan F, what I was and have been requesting is a slow speed film in sheet film, 2x3 4x5 and 5x7.
What I have been hearing is that Ilford isn't interested in a slow speed film. Now Ole comes up with a 25 speed film that Ilford supposedly has in the works, with all respect, why didn't Simon mention it in his long, why we won't/can't make a Pan F like film on sheet, thread.

I can't believe that a slow speed sheet film of 25 ISO is in the works and Simon couldn't connect that with what I was saying.

It could have gone, if Ole is correct, "We can't put Pan F on sheet film because... what he said in his comment... BUT, we have an ISO 25 speed film that will be on sheet film in all sizes comming out soon."

It looks like there is a real lack of imagination out there. You know connect the dots?

Simon: is there a slow speed sheet film in all sizes less than 8x10 including metric sizes with a speed of ISO 25 in the works or in conception or in production?

That's a simple statement have some fun with it.

Curt

Simon R Galley

03-21-2007, 06:27 AM

Dear Curt,

Yes we have been looking at a 25 asa film based on DELTA controlled crystal growth technology, is it a full project yet ?: No , would it go to sheet film ? : No idea. We have received feedback from Apuggers on lots of product ideas ( and from our website ), I am hoping to post in the next couple of weeks an update from our marketing director.

As to your comments re our business being a 'vanity' business, and not "wholly rounded as KODAK once was" , you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, and I respect that, and your right to express it, but I maintain that some of the most memorable and important images, even World changing images.. ever made, have been made on ILFORD Film and printed on ILFORD paper, which is why it is a huge source of pride ( not vanity ) that I work for and passionately believe in this company and the products it makes.....

As to the comment re KODAK, I agree, fabulous products, fabulous history, great and innovative people, anyone who has read my posts will see that I value the choice and variety available from all manufacturers, not just my own...why... because this is what will ensure silver based photography expands and touches new exponents of the art and will bring us more advocats in the future.....